NAU’s Department of English, Rhetoric and the Teaching of Writing emphasis (RTW), is designed to address students’ needs from a variety of professional backgrounds. The undergraduate segment includes a certificate emphasis that focuses on rhetorical analysis in such areas as food and travel writing, memoir writing, and intercultural communication. Undergraduate and Graduate students are encouraged to apply knowledge from courses in diversity and language, identity studies, and many others to their areas of expertise.

The Rhetoric program is intent on preparing students to meet their personal and professional goals, and classes within the program reflect this approach. The following snippets are from interviews with faculty members in the RTW area where they provide insight and perspective into their views of teaching, rhetoric, and the role of the classroom.

Early in her career, Dr. Barron realized that “writing and communication never just stopped with the assignment,” an insight that carries over to her classes. She teaches her students how to effectively communicate orally and in writing, but also seeks to develop the critical thinking skills necessary to rhetorically evaluate a wide variety of situations.

Dr. Barron approaches rhetoric “with diversity in mind,” and encourages students to see discussions from all points of view. She focuses on developing “self-reflective” students who “understand consequence,” an aspect of rhetoric she feels is often overlooked. She believes that the study of rhetoric helps to create problem solvers, in turn preparing students to effectively respond to real-life situations they will encounter upon leaving university.

Dr. Glau was
once asked to identify every type of rhetoric. His response—“I tried . . . it’s
impossible”—signifies the broad understanding he hopes to instill in his
students. There is “rhetoric in the food you eat, in the clothes you wear,” and
his classes are structured to help students identify it in places where they
may not traditionally look.

Incorporating
rhetoric into different forms of writing is an essential goal of his classes,
but far from the only one. He wants to give students “a range of tools to use
when they’re faced with a similar situation later on,” highlighting the broad
nature of the discipline. Dr. Glau reminds students that they will at the
university for a handful of years, and that his job is to prepare them for
“many years in civic, professional, and personal life,” an objective that influences
the purpose of his classes.

Dr. Gray-Rosendale sees rhetoric as crucial to professional
and academic environments, but also as a positive asset in everyday life.
Possessing a working knowledge of rhetoric “makes you a more careful consumer
of everything, including culture,” a major reason why this skillset “really
transcends the classroom.” She believes that becoming an effective rhetor
relies on acknowledging and responding to differences between people, opinions,
and values. However, she is quick to point out that “rhetoric is not about
working towards consensus at all costs,” but rather identifying common ground
in an effort to investigate multiple perspectives on every issue.

Gray-Rosendale does not just see her job as simply to relay
information to students, but also to help them achieve their “own unique
goals.” The Rhetoric Department is “interested in [students] as whole people, not just as people who sit
in chairs,” an approach that uses the classroom to help students learn about
themselves, explore career possibilities, and hone in on their abilities.

Dr. Gruber
believes that rhetoric functions as “the lifeline of communication,” essential
to successfully conveying an idea to an intended audience. She wants students
to walk away with the ability to listen to others and use that information to
gain perspective and form intelligent arguments. Rather than seeing rhetoric as
a negative force that seeks to “persuade by any means necessary,” her students
learn to utilize ethical virtues in evaluation of discourse.She also believes that how we communicate
influences how we present ourselves, and more importantly, how we see
ourselves.

Dr. Gruber is
keen on structuring her classes to benefit students in every way. Like the
Rhetoric Department as a whole, she is “very interested in how we can make the
classroom work better for you,” which results in class activities that allow
students to directly apply newfound knowledge to their respective careers.

The Northern Arizona University’s Rhetoric and Writing program was established in 2010 as a program to address rhetoric, literacy, research, and writing for undergraduates and graduates. RTW faculty’s teaching is directly affected by the latest research in the fields of rhetoric, composition, literacy studies, multimedia studies, and professional writing. They apply their in-depth knowledge of the field to teach both undergraduate and graduate students on campus and online. The department stresses a diverse approach that encourages the study of language and identity, public writing, self-reflective writing, document design, and internship preparation are part of the undergraduate offerings.